Earlier this month the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) released its latest research into the UK’s Digital Economy, which highlighted the need for more digital and data skills among SMEs in the services and manufacturing sectors.

In the small hours of 24 June 2016, seemingly almost a lifetime ago, David Dimbleby made an announcement to a stunned nation: “At 20 minutes to five, we can now say, the decision taken in 1975 by this country to join the Common Market has been reversed by this referendum to leave the EU.”

As time ticks away on the Brexit clock, one of the few things we can be quite certain of is the high degree of uncertainty among businesses about a future outside the EU. Negotiations between Downing Street and Brussels sputter along and, depending on which newspaper you subscribe to, both are to blame for the failure to clarify the situation.

For web-to-print giants Photobox, Truprint and Vistaprint, personalised print is their lifeblood, but it is a market that most commercial printers have either struggled to compete in or not entered at all.

It’s probably safe to assume that $790m (£515m)-turnover US company EFI has been after another UK MIS scalp for some time. Since acquiring compatriot Printcafe in 2003, itself a keen consolidator in the market in prior years, California-headquartered EFI has bought a further 13 MIS companies, in the US, Australia, Brazil, Germany, France and the Netherlands. It acquire the UK’s Technique three years ago, and has now swooped for Shuttleworth.

It was once the behemoth of paper merchanting with around 1,200 staff and almost 20 UK sites but 12 months ago, on, of all days, 1 April, the bulk of Paperlinx UK went into administration and the industry held its breath.